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During the brief periods when Eugenia seemed relieved of her confusion, everyone in the big house drew breaths of relief, and even the slaves in the cane fields, who caught a faraway glimpse of her only when, swathed in her mosquito veiling, she came out to take the air, could feel the improvement. "Am I still pretty?" she asked Tete, patting her body, which had lost any trace of voluptuousness. "Yes, very pretty," the girl assured her, but she prevented her from looking in the Venetian mirror in the salon before she bathed her, washed her hair, dressed her in one of her fine, though outmoded, gowns, and rubbed carmine on her cheeks and charcoal on her eyelids. "Close all the house shutters and burn tobacco leaves to kill the insects, I am going to dine with my husband," Eugenia ordered, unusually animated. Thus attired, hesitant, her eyes haunted and hands trembling from opium, she appeared in the dining hall, where she had not set foot in weeks. Valmorain welcomed her with a blend of surprise and suspicion, for he never knew how those sporadic reconciliations would end. After so much marital unhappiness he had opted to ignore her, as if that trapped phantom had no relation to him, but when Eugenia appeared in the flattering light of the candelabra, dressed for a party, his illusions returned for a few moments. He no longer loved Eugenia, but she was his wife and they would be together till death. A few sparks of normality tended to lead them to the bed, where he attacked without preamble, with the urgency of a sailor. Those embraces did not unite them, nor did they lead Eugenia back to the terrain of reason, but at times they did result in another pregnancy, and so the cycle of hope and frustration would be repeated. In June of that year she learned that she was pregnant again, but no one, she least of all, was moved to celebrate the news. By coincidence there was a kalenda the same night that Tante Rose confirmed her state, and Eugenia believed that the drums were a
Ceremony Officiant
The drastic measure of keeping Eugenia sedated had a better result than Parmentier himself had hoped. During the following months, her belly swelled normally as she passed her days lying beneath mosquito netting on a divan on the gallery, sleeping or distracted by the passing clouds, completely disco
"Are you calculating her price, Cambray? She isn't for sale," Toulouse Valmorain said one afternoon when he surprised his overseer by suddenly appearing on the gallery.
"What did you say, monsieur?" the mulatto answered in a defiant tone, not changing his position.
Valmorain motioned to him, and the head overseer unwillingly followed him to the office. Tete did not know what they talked about; her master told her only that he did not want anyone wandering through the house without his authorization, not even the overseer. Cambray's insolence did not change after that run-in with his employer, and his only precaution before coming to the gallery to ask for a drink and unclothe Tete with his eyes was to make sure Valmorain wasn't nearby. He had lost respect for him some time ago, but he didn't dare push too hard because he was still nursing the ambition to become manager.
When December arrived, Valmorain summoned Dr. Parmentier to stay at the plantation for as long as necessary, until Eugenia gave birth; he did not want to leave the matter in Tante Rose's hands. "She knows more about these things than I do," the physician argued, but he accepted the invitation because it would give him time to rest, read, and a